BURMA:AID AGENCIES, whose international staff have been barred from the areas of Burma worst hit by Cyclone Nargis, were yesterday preparing to test the Burmese regime's new openness following the UN's apparent diplomatic breakthrough.
Relief organisations, readying to scale up their aid effort in the Irrawaddy delta, submitted fresh requests for their disaster management experts to bolster operations already set up by Burmese staff.
More than three weeks after Nargis tore across the delta, leaving an estimated 134,000 dead and 2.4 million in need of aid, the UN secretary general hailed the regime's shift as a sign of hope.
A senior UN official said that since Ban Ki-moon met the Burmese leader, Gen Than Shwe, last week there were signals the regime was opening its doors.
"There's been a slow but steady increase in the number of visas issued," said Kathleen Cravero, the UN development programme's crisis recovery director in Rangoon. "Indeed, not so slow, in the last couple of days, it's been a surge. And there's been greater access to the delta."
Mr Ban said some international aid workers and agencies were already working in the delta and he hoped they would be able to open bases there, as agreed by Gen Than Shwe.
Burma's junta has asked aid agencies to provide a list of those they want to work in the delta, demanding to know their roles and how long they wish to remain.
But some international aid staff decided not to wait and set out to test the accord by seeing if they could get past the numerous checkpoints into the delta. Others were cautious. Save the Children, whose Burmese staff have reached 200,000 people with aid, said it had still to hear about three permit requests submitted last Thursday.
- (Guardian service)